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Nimoy was one of the better actors in TOS with one of the best characters, and he seemed like a decent guy too in all the interviews I saw. So sad how they're all dying off. Goodbye another piece of my childhood.

I agree. I have no doubt racism still exists. I have some relatives in East Texas that have on many occasions shown that to be true, but in this case it seems more likely to be an overreaction to the Boston incident and Newtown.

An anonymous reader writes "PengPod is over half way to its $49,000 goal at crowdfunding site indiegogo. What does this mean you ask? If their goal is met it will be the first mass-produced dual-booting tablet capable of running GNU/Linux and Android/Linux, but it doesn’t stop there. They are also using the latest Plasma Active; this allows PengPod’s tablets to have touch features that were previously only found in iPad and Android tablets. Who ever has the most referrals to [spam URL stripped] gets a free PengPod tablet and case!"

The screenwriter of Toy Story 3, and Little Miss Sunshine, Michael Arndt is writing the script for Star Wars: Episode VII according to Lucasfilm. From the article: "...The new movie has just entered pre-production and is slated to be released in 2015. It was announced just last month as Disney acquired Lucasfilm, but there’s still no word on what the major plot points of the new chapter will entail. However, Vulture reports that 'the studio’s brass want to bring back the three central characters of the original Star Wars: a much older Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. No deals are in place with any of the original actors, though our source did say it had high ambition to sign up Mark Hamill, and EW recently reported that Harrison Ford was open to the idea of returning.'"

An anonymous reader writes "One of the most exciting aspects of the advent of LED lighting has been the chance for companies to take unique approaches to how they want to solve the challenges presented by the shift in technology. Now 3M, a company not generally associated with light bulbs, has entered the LED market with its own novel design. The company developed an LED bulb that was able to take advantage of its experience in edge-lit TVs and LED backlighting. Rather than using a more conventional design, the Advanced Light — the company’s first home bulb — uses lightguides in order to distribute the light generated inside. This comes with some interesting advantages, most importantly a design that looks a lot like a conventional incandescent bulb and one that casts a similar light pattern."Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes "Exoplanetary science has reached a fever pitch with indications from Kepler of other Earth-like planetary bodies in the universe. But Kepler's technology, though hardy, is already old. Kepler relies on observations of diminished starlight during planetary crossings. No light is detected from the planet itself. Over the last decade astronomers have been looking to direct observation to capture photons directly from planets. The challenge is obvious: how do you mask its sun? But the solutions are far from straightforward. This story follows a team of direct observers as they search the skies using the Hale telescope outfitted with machinery to image faint planets from hundreds of light years away."Link to Original Source

Lately, Steven Vaughan-Nichols has been been noticing that the old meme about how grandpa can't understand iPhones, Linux, or the cloud is showing up more often even as it's becoming increasingly irrelevant. The truth is: Many older developers are every bit as good as young programmers, and he cites plenty of example of still-relevant geeks to prove it. And he writes, "Sadly, while that should have put an end to the idea that long hours are a fact of IT life, this remnant of our factory-line past lingers both in high tech and in other industries. But what really matters is who's productive and who's not.""